Conservation Land Group

Landowners

CLG assists landowners in developing and implementing strategies that are tailored to their individual or organizational needs, including financial and conservation goals, and the specific attributes of their property and its use.

Through our unique understanding of the options available to landowners of properties with significant biological, agricultural, scenic, recreational, and other conservation values, CLG works with you to craft a comprehensive strategy for the sale or donation of your land. Conservation Options

Once a strategy has been selected, CLG provides much-needed guidance for owners who can be overwhelmed by the complexity of conservation transactions, including valuation, tax, legal, and other matters. We handle nearly all aspects of the project until completion, including marketing the property or partial interests (conservation easements) to potential purchasers or donees, negotiating and documenting transaction terms, working with buyers to resolve due diligence matters and to secure required regulatory approvals, encouraging public and philanthropic organizations to direct funds toward the project, and overseeing title and escrow matters.

Our landowner clients range from long-time ranching and farming families to residential development firms and corporations. Examples of CLG’s work for landowners include:

•	CLG developed a phased disposition program for a 15,000-acre ranch that had been owned by one family for many decades. The property was within a critical wildlife movement corridor and provided linkages to hundreds of thousands of acres of publicly-held or conserved property. CLG facilitated five separate sales to two state agencies and a large conservancy over a period of six years which allowed the family to gradually re-invest the sales proceeds in income properties and out-of-state cattle ranches.

•	On behalf of a land developer, CLG brokered the sale of 1,500 acres of habitat land within a National Wildlife Refuge to state and federal agencies. The landowner was pursuing the development of a mixed use community on the site while CLG simultaneously explored conservation opportunities and worked with independent appraisers to substantiate the property’s value. The client was compelled to sell the property for conservation after comparing the benefits of a sale against the inherent risks of long-term land development.

•	CLG assisted an extended family with divergent interests in conserving a 1,900-acre coastal ranch/farm with significant resource values, including an estuary, off-shore island, river and waterfall. The transaction included the sale of a conservation easement over one-third of the ranch and the simultaneous fee title sale of the balance of the property subject to a long-term grazing lease. This strategy allowed certain family members to cash-out while others were able to continue to own and operate the ranch - thus avoiding a lengthy (and costly) partition action.

			Landowners

			Buyers

			Strategic Planning